Public Policy and Leadership

Welcome to the Master's & Doctoral Public Policy Resource Guide!

Welcome from UNLV Libraries!

Your UNLV ACE account can be used on the library website to access online library materials including databases, journal articles, and streaming videos.

To begin, view the UNLV Libraries tutorials.

Need more help?   Contact your librarian, Susie Skarl: susie.skarl@unlv.edu

Learn Effective Database Search Strategies

  (The following are suggestions to improve your search results)

Use different search terms or key words

1. Try using other words to describe your topic, it will give you better results. 

2. Examples: urban and leadership, cities and administration, metropolitan

 Truncation or wildcard (*)

1. This will locate alternate endings for your search term.

2. Example - gov* to find government, governments, governmental, etc.

3. Note: Some databases use different symbols; consult the help page for the correct symbol

 Try different databases

1. Each database contains unique material, so searching a different database may yield more relevant research.

 Help page

1. Each database has a page with tips to help you effectively search that resource.

Using Google: Type in your keywords then add site:.gov to limit your results to government-related resources. 
Example: "no child left behind" site:.gov

A think tank or policy institute is a research institute which performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Although many think tanks claim to be neutral, some may be considered to have a more conservative or a more liberal agenda. For example, the Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank and the Heritage Foundation is considered to be conservative. Be sure to examine the "About the Organization" page, in addition to outside sources to investigate the organization's agenda and their political views.

• Think Tank Search--Harvard: From Harvard's Kennedy School of Government library; custom Google search + list of hundreds of US and international think tanks.

Think tanks are defined by the above as institutions affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and businesses that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. 

Tips: Search these selected think tanks by keywords to find research and analysis.
If one seems most relevant to your topic, go to the home page and mine the site for publications, issues, research, and links to other organizations.

• Brookings: Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development.
• Urban Institute: he Urban Institute is a Washington D.C.-based think tank that carries out economic and social policy research to "open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions."
• RAND.org: RAND's research and analysis address issues that impact people around the world including security, health, education, sustainability, growth, and development.
• New America: New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a non-partisan think tank in the United States. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, education, and the economy.
• Mathematica Policy Research: "Mathematica Policy Research is a pioneering nonpartisan research organization dedicated to improving public well-being."
• MDRC: MDRC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization based in New York City and Oakland, CA.
• The Human Rights Campaign: "The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer equality."
• The Children's Defense Fund: "The Children’s Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities."
• Center for Law & Social Policy: "The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization advancing policy solutions for low-income people."

• APA 7th Overview Handout

  Handout covering the basics of APA style - 7th Edition. (created by Samantha Godbey, Education Librarian)

• APA Overview

  PPT (updated for 7th Edition), including potentially tricky examples such as book chapters and secondary citations. (created by Samantha Godbey, UNLV Education Librarian)

• APA 7th Edition Quick Reference Guide

  From APA, color-coded explanation of journal, book, and book chapter references (pdf).

• APA 6th/7th Comparison Chart

  Side by side comparison of the two editions, created by a librarian at East Carolina University.

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) - APA Style Guide

  This is a dependable site for APA questions. Look for their Sample Paper, too.

Other Resources:

• APA Style and Grammar Guidelines

  From APA: Detailed instructions and examples from the 7th edition

• Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style

  from APA

• Free DOI Lookup Tool

  Provides a DOI for an article citation when one is available.

• Is it Plagiarism Yet? (Purdue OWL)

  Explains when to give credit to another person for their intellectual work (and how to do it correctly). Look for the "Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing" section on the left for examples of each.

Resources for APA 6th Edition (Old Edition as of 2020):

• APA 6th Edition Handout

  Samantha's handout covering the basics of APA style - 6th Edition. Use only if your instructor says to still use the older edition!

Use the following resources to track citations, including by author, number of articles cited, number of articles published, etc. 

• Social Sciences Citation Index: The Social Sciences Citation Index ® (SSCI ®) provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in over 1,700 of the world's leading scholarly social sciences journals covering more than 50 disciplines.

What is RefWorks?
RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic software package that enables you to:

• Organize your research
• Create a bibliography in a variety of citation styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago
• Import references from many data sources
• Create bibliographies in different document formats (Word, RTF, HTML, etc.)
• Include citations while you write your paper

"New" RefWorks Instructions

• New RefWorks tutorials (YouTube)

• RefWorks 101 Handout (Spring 2020)

• RefWorks Advanced Handout (Spring 2020)